Mr. Gresham to Mr. Yang Yü.
Washington, December 27, 1894.
Sir: I had the honor to receive your note of the 6th instant in relation to the interview between us in regard to the trial and execution of the two Japanese spies who were arrested at Shanghai.
If I have deferred my reply longer than I at first intended, it has been because of a disinclination to pursue a discussion on the personal lines which your note suggests.
In my note of the 30th ultimo I stated that there was “reason to believe that the men were executed before the return of Colonel Denby to Peking, and therefore in derogation of the voluntary promise which you assured me your Government had made.” I fail to find in that statement, or in anything that I have said or written on the subject, any suggestion that “embarrassment might attach to anyone in consequence of the action of your Government.” In the introduction, therefore, of such a suggestion into the correspondence, I can not hold myself responsible, and I am compelled to state the facts as I understand them, without regard to it.
As to the request I made, that the men might not be tried till the return of the minister of the United States to Peking, our understandings do not differ. You state that when the request was received you at once communicated it by cable to your Government, and strongly expressed the wish that it might be complied with. You also state that, after the early press reports that the men had been decapitated, you told me I might rest assured that the prisoners “would not suffer harm before the arrival of Colonel Denby.” In this regard our understandings are not at variance. But we differ in regard to my statement that you informed me your Government had made such a promise.
In this particular I owe it to candor to say that my understanding is at variance with that expressed in your note of the 6th instant. Nor am I alone in this respect. At two of our interviews Mr. Rockhill, the Third Assistant Secretary of State, was, as you are aware, present, and his understanding clearly accords with mine as to what occurred. It is not my intention to intimate that your language was calculated to create an impression for which there was no actual foundation; but as your expressions were communicated to me, I am not at liberty to admit that they did not convey the meaning which I ascribed to them.
I should have been glad to refrain from any discussion of differences as to what occurred at our interview; but I can not permit to remain unanswered in the files of the Department a communication which might be thought to imply that I could have any motive other than those of delicacy and propriety for shrinking from such a discussion.
Accept, sir, etc.,